On Wednesday morning, Silk Road 2.0 came online, promising a new and slightly improved version of the anonymous black market for drugs and other contraband that the Department of Justice shut down just over a month before. Like the old Silk Road, which until its closure served as the Web’s most popular bazaar for anonymous narcotics sales, the new site uses the anonymity tool Tor and the cryptocurrency Bitcoin to protect the identity of its users. As of Wednesday morning, it already sported close to 500 drug listings, ranging from marijuana to ecstasy to cocaine. It’s even being administered by a new manager using the handle the Dread Pirate Roberts, the same pseudonym adopted by the previous owner and manager of the Silk Road, allegedly the 29-year-old Ross Ulbricht arrested by the FBI in San Francisco on October 2nd.

The new Silk Road's login page, poking fun at the Department of Justice's seizure notice posted to the original Silk Road.

The only significant visible change from the last Silk Road, spotted by the dark-web-focused site AllThingsVice that first published the site’s new url, is a new security feature that allows users to use their PGP encryption key as an extra authentication measure. It also has a new login page, parodying the seizure notice posted by the Department of Justice on the prior Silk Road’s homepage, with the notice “This Hidden Site Has Been Seized” replaced by the sentence “This Hidden Site Has Risen Again.”

The Silk Road sequel experienced some hiccups coming online–it had planned to launch at 4:20pm on November 5th, a significant time and date for an anarchic drug site. But that launch was delayed for 24 hours, and even now the new Silk Road 2.0 isn’t fully operational–its administrators say they’re still gauging the site’s traffic load before they start accepting orders later this week.

When it does resume sales, the new Silk Road may not have an easy time convincing users to resume their black market business as usual. The previous Silk Road is only one of three anonymous black market sites to shut down in the last six weeks. First the administrators of the competing site Atlantis abruptly announced it would be going offline for “security” reasons, absconding with all the bitcoins that users had stored in their Atlantis accounts. Then last week, the Silk Road alternative site Project Black Flag similarly disappeared, and its administrator MettaDPR posted a message on its user forum admitting that he or she had “panicked” and stolen the site’s bitcoins.

A third site, the older Silk Road competitor Black Market Reloaded, also experienced a temporary crisis earlier in October when an administrator leaked the site’s source code onto the web. Black Market Reloaded’s owner known as Backopy initially said he would shut down the site as a result, but then changed his mind when the leak turned out not to expose any obvious vulnerabilities endangering user privacy.

“I for one do not trust the new [Silk Road],” wrote one user on the site’s forums. “I just get an eerie feeling from the whole idea of it, right now i will steer clear…only time will tell, i want to dive head first into it, but i want to see it play out for a little bit before i slap down another 500 bucks, an investment i made the day before [Silk Road] was closed.”

Many more of Silk Road’s users seem reassured, however, by the fact that Silk Road 2.0 is being managed in part by known administrators from the original Silk Road, particularly a moderator known as Libertas who has served as one of the more vocal leaders of the Silk Road community since Ulbricht, the alleged Dread Pirate Roberts, was arrested.

Special Report: Mapping The Silk Road
The Silk Road garnered over $1.2 billion in sales and left behind a global footprint.
“Silk Road 2.0 will be reborn better, much much more secure as testament to the tenacity and determination of this wonderful community of ours,” wrote one moderator on the new Silk Road’s forum site with the name Synergy. “We will not be down trodden, we will rise again.”

“Into the breach once more my friends!” wrote one Silk Road vendor on the site known as PerfectScans.

Another user with the handle Steve Jobs took the opportunity to offer a eulogy for 29-year-old Ross Ulbricht, the accused previous Dread Pirate Roberts and owner of the original Silk Road, who was arrested last month and has been extradited from Glen Dyer prison in Oakland, California to a jail in New York where he’s scheduled to have a bail hearing this week.

“Within the excitement and morning light glare of a brand new day for all of us…say a kind prayer for Last DPR,” Steve Jobs writes. “Forsaken, fading, atrophying alone in a concrete box cell… who brought us all together here and gave me a home, now he has none.”

Remember, Remember… Silk Road redux
Posted: November 7, 2013 in Dark Web, Silk Road, Uncategorized
Tags: Bitcoin, dark web, Dread Pirate Roberts, drugs, Silk Road, Tor 10
It’s been just over a month since Silk Road got seized and Ross Ulbricht, allegedly the site’s founder Dread Pirate Roberts, was arrested. A new Silk Road market has opened up, 24 hours after a false start which saw administration try to get things going at the poetic time of 4:20 pm GMT on 5th November . But is it truly the phoenix of Silk Road, a honeypot or an ingenious con?
Few people imagined that the closure of the largest illicit drugs market in the world would stop people from wanting to procure narcotics. In fact many predicted it would set off the so-called ‘Hydra effect’ – cut off the head and five more spring up in its place. And that’s pretty much what happened.

Most members simply migrated to one or both of the other already proven black market sites: Black Market Reloaded and Sheep Marketplace experienced unprecedented surges in registrations. Both sites provided methods of verifying trusted Silk Road vendors so that their customers could follow them, and they worked hard to attract buyers with improved features and security claims.

Then there were the faithful who wanted to see Silk Road recreated – same philosophy, same name, same interface, same enigmatic leader. A race of sorts broke out, with at least three factions trying to claim the Silk Road name and the Dread Pirate Roberts moniker.

The early frontrunner seemed to be Silk Road 2.0. Claiming to be a group of ‘trusted vendors’ they got the support of several high profile members of the original site. They created a members’ forum that replicated the original and set to work on the marketplace. But it didn’t take long for serious security concerns to be raised and the members soon withdrew their support. That one disappeared before it even appeared.

DPR looks the same, though we can be pretty sure it’s not Ross Ulbricht making the posts
The second was the ill-fated Project Black Flag. Started by somebody calling him/herself ‘mettaDPR’, this marketplace at least opened. And then closed just as quickly, although despite some speculation it was seemingly due to incompetence rather than malice.

No hiding the fact I’m a journo now
All the while, however, several people who held administration and moderator positions on the old Silk Road banded together to recreate Silk Road, aiming to be bigger and better than before. First they worked on recreating the community – the backbone and arguably the most defining feature of the original site. A new Dread Pirate Roberts was created; a figurehead who is the face of the site and the keeper of its philosophy, but considered an idea and a legacy rather than ‘one man’.

Although trying its best to be a remake of the original – and sadly, these new forums are considerably more troll-heavy than the old ones – the new administration is working on some improvements. Registrations are closed to new members unless they have an invite from an existing member. “Those who invite spammers or trolls who have their accounts deleted will also face repercussions,” warns the new DPR, “so please only invite those who are customers or associates.”

Many of the members of the old site became members of the new forum, adopting the same usernames and even reconstructing some of their favourite threads. The Spare Coins Thread is there, spreading love and Bitcoin amongst the worthy, and DoctorX continues to provide free, practical advice about harm minimisation, substance abuse and narcotics management. Those who can spread the love are giving positive karma to the good guys and negative karma to the trolls and journos. And some new member categories have been created (check out my cute green squares to the left).

Some tasks are being outsourced on a freelance basis or, as the site calls them, “bounties”. So people with the requisite skills can earn some Bitcoin to offset their imbibing habits:

Silk Road’s version of a Jobs Vacant board
On the marketplace, high-volume, low-value vendors will find the new commission structure more equitable with their bulk sale counterparts as commissions (which are on a sliding scale from 8% for sales under $500 to 4% for sales $20,000+) are calculated on overall sales rather than on a per-transaction basis:

New commission structure
The new DPR spent the past week or so providing hints to members as to the date of the site’s re-launch via a string of cryptic clues and puzzles in his signature. The more geeky members eventually figured out the exact time of launch of the new Silk Road – 4:20pm on 5 November 2013. The countdown started and the excitement grew, reaching fever pitch today. It’s like the night before Christmas! cried one member. OMG OMG OMG, it’s tomorrow! squealed another.1

Vendors were provided with a sneak preview and access a couple of days earlier to enable them to set up shop before the doors were opened. But then the excited masses were greeted with disappointment – the grand opening had been pushed back 24 hours, to 6th November, a date on which nothing notable ever happened at all.

They came through this time though. The new site appears to be near-identical to the old, with the most obvious difference being the addition of a defaced FBI seizure notice in the background of the login screen (as seen above). Most features are disabled to allow people to become used to the site.

Upon logging in, the welcome screen is a new touch:

We get a welcome instead of going straight to the drugs now
But the rest looks pretty much the same, aside from so far only a hundredth of the number of listings:

Looks just like the old one
There’s also a new ‘profile’ section and the option of PGP-enabled two-step authentication. Users have the option to display prices in a number of currencies, although not AUD, despite Australians being the third-largest users of the site according to the FBI:

Edit: AUD is now included as an option

Some new bits here
The Silk Road faithful hope that this is a new beginning and proof that, as the closure of Napster did nothing to stop piracy, the closure of the single largest black market will be ineffective in the grand scheme of online narcotics sales. The cynical think it might be the beginning of a long con (it wouldn’t take long before the administrators have access to $millions in Bitcoin), or just a big hoax to affect Bitcoin prices. And the paranoid deem it a honeypot.

Download the TOR bundle. This is a browser which allows you to access the dark web. Browsing will most likely be fairly slow as the way it keeps you anonymous is by routing the traffic through a whole host of other computers before hitting the internet. This gives you a fairly good level of anonymity, but the cost of that is connection speed.

Once you have TOR running, browse to the address in OP's post and you will be on the Silk Road v2.0 website. Then it's just a case of registering and browsing.

I have always wanted to try DMT so this website looks promising but its a bit too early to tell.

If you live anywhere except the US, you're best off buying some Mimosa rootbark from an ethnobotanicals site and doing the extraction yourself. It's fairly straightforward really, you just need lots of litmus paper to keep checking your ph levels and stuff. Much cheaper than buying DMT ready-made, and much more satisfying

The “authorities” can shut down website after website, but the tide of new technology and the human spirit itself cannot and will not be overcome. This is the hard lesson that statists and collectivists will be learning the hard way in the years to come, as decentralization and freedom stage a gigantic, peaceful revolution. A revolution that is already in full swing and gaining tremendous momentum with each passing day.

I fear for our future man, to think teenagers these days are surfing the deep web.

Buying a bit of puff or some acid online isn't my worry here, it's the fact that they have to go on the deep web to do it.

When I was younger I was forced to mix with some right shady characters sometimes to get my weed or acid as the government put's these things in the hands of the bad guys, and the fuckers know it.

Now we have a scenario where kids are putting themselves in the same zone as peados, rapists and murderers in order to get their gear.

besides the rest that you listed, they want to normalize both the first two, so this is the way to do it..., basically report on it on every newspaper/video segment how they busted and part 2 comes up, after bmt and sheep and its everywhere on tele and all and so ppl search out underground real internet to find out how the internet really is, not censored "internet" but darkweb, thereby they put more things in front of ppl thereby normalizing what is there etc..

Id rather it didnt tbh, I feel it taints bitcoin for its normally the first thing people encounter when they search for bitcoin.

Truth be told most of bitcoins worth would be because of SR, without SR I honestly can't even think of a reason for bit coin to exist just about.

Doubt it would have got as far as quickly without the huge demand places on it because of silk road.

I get your point tho .

I will never understand tho why there being so "public" about an open online drugs market, just asking for trouble(They should learn from the more successful ones). Can't beat them blow for blow , however , can run and hide all day long if you keep your head down and mouth shut with a bit of luck, esp on the internet.

__________________
"If you support the war on drug's, you have blood on your hand's. "
"Anything i say is just my opinion , and i dont claim it to be fact unless said otherwise "

Now we have a scenario where kids are putting themselves in the same zone as peados, rapists and murderers in order to get their gear.

The dark web is purely websites that aren't listed on search engines. Peadophilia and other shady things make up a miniscule part of the dark web, it's just that's all the media report.

Quote:

Originally Posted by kanz

Truth be told most of bitcoins worth would be because of SR, without SR I honestly can't even think of a reason for bit coin to exist just about.

Doubt it would have got as far as quickly without the huge demand places on it because of silk road.

SR accounted for a very small portion of bitcoins. Just look at recent prices. Bitcoin actually hit it's all time high at a time when Silk Road wasn't functioning. SR may have been one of the early boosts for bitcoin, but it's no longer it's main use.

Someone suggested the other day that a lot of the big drug deals going international might be paid using bitcoin but that is probably not involving the silk road but it could be true. A lot easier than carting around suitcases full of cash and safer than the banks.

Quote:

When I was younger I was forced to mix with some right shady characters sometimes to get my weed or acid as the government put's these things in the hands of the bad guys, and the fuckers know it.

Now we have a scenario where kids are putting themselves in the same zone as peados, rapists and murderers in order to get their gear.

Yes. It is terrible. Drugs should be decriminalised for this reason alone. All those young folk are inevariably being put in dangerous situations because of drugs being illegal. It would be far better to keep them from having to go to dodgy people and places on and off line.

__________________"People will see what children can be - People will learn life in paradise."

"What is fearsome is powerless to affect a fearless man." "No matter how omnipotent a monster may seem, once it is forgotten it ceases to exist altogether."